DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

“What I often refer to is a dressing-up box. I used to make sure that my appearance
was top-notch, my personality was certainly different when dressed for work than
when I was wearing jeans and t-shirt with the kids.” (p.3)
After many years of living behind this professional façade, she described getting lost
in her dressing-up box, metaphorically indicating an over-identified dysfunction:
“I think there is a point where the dressing-up box started to become part of my
life…I started to have ambitions towards power and money, but I think it was more
revenge at my loss of something else – my substitute. It was very difficult to wake up
many years later to realise I had got lost in the dressing-up box.” (p.17)
8.7 Masculine Personas: An Adaptation to Male-Dominated Environments
All six individuals in this study were questioned with regard to how they felt
their sense of masculinity and femininity was affected by the crisis. A very common
pattern emerged. All six participants referred to their persona as a masculine
construct, used for adapting to “macho” or masculine environments. They described
finding themselves before the crisis in environments that were promoted
stereotypically masculine attributes such as competitiveness, superiority over women,
proving strength, ruthlessness, hierarchy and status-seeking. Victoria, for one,
described the culture in rural Italy as “macho”:
“Yes, it’s still a very macho place, you know, women are still considered below
men.” (p.3)
“I would say it’s a very macho society, now it’s less, but women are meant to do
certain things, still obey their men. I have girlfriends, some even younger than me,
and they are married with men who are very controlling.” (p.8)
Correspondingly, Victoria attempted to craft male characteristics in the hope that she
would feel more empowered. She said that she attempted to take on a more masculine
identity because she envied the authority that the men had in her patriarchal society:
“Probably when I was in Italy I remember that some time I was kind of masculine in
the sense that, it’s difficult to explain, outside I wasn’t assertive at all, but I remember
thinking I wanted to be a man. I remember thinking I would like to be a man for a
day because a man is someone with authority, someone who is very assertive, and
that was something I wasn’t able to be. So in some way I was trying to be as strong
as a man. I wasn’t able to say what I wanted, but I had this side of me that wanted to
show that it was strong, so it was at times kind of aggressive and a little bit masculine
probably.” (p.19)
Mark also described the culture at his financial consultancy as “macho”:
“The women who did survive there were described as having more balls than the
guys. I would say the atmosphere was macho.” (p.15)
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